Abominable Murderer
by foreverknights28
Summary: If they don't escape soon they would be the victim of perfect ppan!
1. Chapter 1

**AN:**

Hi guyz! I'm back only for a short period though. Btw this story is a birthday gift for **Darknite0403** which was scheduled to be given 4 years ago. But due to my laziness I couldnt gave her. So after so many years I'm finally giving this to you and hoping you would like it. I know you have already left ff but if you have read this make sure you drop a review.

Hope you like it. Belated happy birthday an extremely sorry for such late gift :)

* * *

 **ABOMINABLE MURDERER~**

Part I

Rajat's

Rajat's last solid memory was of letting Tarika into his house. She had been babbling excitedly about the things which she got to see on her foreign tour. She only stopped when she noticed the annoyed look on his face, as she took few steps towards him while continuing her babbling he noticed her horrified expression, her eyes focused on some point over his shoulder. He started to turn—

And that was the end of his concrete recollection.

He had a very faint memory of someone talking above him. Something about doing it all at once. He could have sworn he was moving somehow. And he thought he heard Vivek's name…

Whatever the case might be, his head was pounding, and it was a real struggle to open his eyes more than a crack for fear of the light. But when he managed this particular feat and looked around, he realized that something was very much amiss. Namely, he was sprawled on his back in the centre of a long hallway. Tasha was lying beside him, unmoving.

WAIT..TASHA? What was she doing here? Rajat stared at her with his wide eyes when something hit his mind,

"Where is Tarika?" If he remembers correctly she was with him until he fell into a deep slumber. But now she was not here and he had no idea where she was and how they were or how they had gotten there.

Sitting up proved to be a bit of a chore, but he managed and took a more in-depth glance at the unfamiliar surroundings. They were, indeed, in the middle of an expansive corridor. The ceiling above them was high and arched; it all was decorated very ornately, in a decidedly Western style, and had an extremely archaic feeling to it.

But that wasn't all. Something about the place seemed very…off. Odd. The air didn't feel right, or something. Rajat was having an extremely difficult time placing exactly why the hair on the back of his neck was standing up and a chill was running down his spine. He tried to write it off as being a shaky remnant of the realization that he had been kidnapped, but somehow it didn't seem like that could explain the entire feeling away.

Ever the pragmatist, he gave himself a shake and turned his attention to Tasha. He gave her shoulder a gentle shake. "tasha? Tasha, wake up!"

After a moment, her eyes fluttered open. "Ra..Rajat..Sir?" she murmured, wincing. Still, she sat up without his assistance and glanced around, one hand pressed to her forehead. "Why.. are we? What happen—…" Her eyes widened and she trailed off as she seemed to recall the answer to the question before she could finish asking it.

"We've been kidnapped," he said, standing and offering her a hand.

Outwardly, he remained as calm as possible. To panic now could potentially be suicide. But his well-trained mind was already racing with all the ways that this scenario was odd. There was no doubt that he and Tarika had been snatched from his home and after that Tasha was abducted from her home. But they should not have woken up as they did—free and unbound in the middle of a strange building. Most kidnapping victims were either killed outright, or imprisoned somewhere, weren't they? At least, that's how it seemed in the majority of kidnapping cases he was familiar with.

…for that matter, if the parties responsible were who he suspected, why hadn't they just been killed?

"Rajat Sir?"

Tasha was talking to him. Focus.

"Sorry…thinking." He gave himself a shake and started moving forward but still keeping a close eye on her.

"Come on, we have to find Tarika first and then let's see if we can find a way out of here."

"Wait..even Tarika is kidnapped?"

Rajat gave a slight nod.

He belatedly thought to check his pockets, and was unsurprised to find them empty. No matter, though. They just needed to find an exit…

Though this all seemed far too simple. He slowed his steps and inched a bit closer to the wall. And though he tried to push the thought aside, he couldn't help but find himself recalling a story he had read once, where a man fixated with hunting sought the ultimate prey, and only found it in the form of other human beings. For human beings were the only creatures capable of thinking at the same level as the hunter, making them much more challenging targets.

It was just another possibility to add to the short list that was forming in his mind. Were they to be hunted down like animals in this place? Was this some sort of cat and mouse game? Or was it an honest mistake—perhaps that they were the wrong targets—and they had been dumped here for lack of a better place, and they were going to be able to waltz right out of here?

Somehow, Rajat sincerely doubted that last possibility.

"Sir? Does this place feel weird to you?" Tasha murmured in an unconscious echo of his earlier thoughts. But she took it a step further, managing to put words to what he felt but couldn't quite put his finger on. "It's like the walls could just reach out and grab you. Or something's going to jump out at you from around the next corner…"

"That pretty much sums it up," Rajat agreed. "Stay close. We need to stay together." They were creeping along, keeping close to the wall. Both were looking around, every sense on fullest alert. This was strange, unfamiliar territory, and neither would be comfortable until they had found a way out.

Rajat couldn't stop replaying his last memories in his mind, over and over and over again. Being in the house, letting Tarika in, her expression just before everything went black…oh! A sudden thought struck him, and he glanced back over his shoulder. "Tasha?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you see the person who grabbed you?" he asked, a bit louder than he had meant to. But if she had seen the assailant that could mean a lot—it could confirm or destroy his personal suspicions, which could potentially, clear up his thoughts on the motive for whatever was going on.

Tasha opened her mouth to respond, but froze in her tracks and instead whispered, "Sir…listen…"

He immediately stopped and listened as well, and was startled to realize that he also heard something.

Voices.

Coming from up ahead, around the corner—in an intersecting corridor.

Instinctively, he pushed back against the wall. "Stay close," he whispered in the softest voice he could manage and still be heard. "I'll go first. If something goes wrong, start running and don't look back."

She looked infinitely pained at that, but swallowed hard and nodded.

Meanwhile, the voices up ahead had quieted as well. Perhaps they had been heard as well. All the more reason for caution, then. Slowly, they crept towards the corner, backs pressed against the wall, hands firmly entwined between them to make sure that they did not lose each other. Rajat hesitated, took a deep breath to steel his nerve, and leaned forward to peer around the corner and see who it was.

To his absolute amazement, Vivek stared back, standing in exactly the same pose and peeking around the corner with the exact same trepidation.

They stood like that for a good couple of seconds before both simultaneously let out a sigh of relief and slumped against the wall, the tension flooding away to be replaced by relief and a slight feeling of stupidity for getting so worked up.

Startled by Rajat's reaction, Tasha stepped from behind him, and nearly crashed into Tarika, who had been standing behind Vivek.

After a small chorus of various relieved and startled exclamations, they finally got down to some sort of business. "You were kidnapped too?" Rajat managed to grab the lead and steer the conversation away from the admittedly reasonable surprise and towards the situation at hand.

Vivek simply nodded as he began explaining the situation, " I was back from the gym and was heading to meet tasha for our dinner date" . Vivek explained, gesturing to Tasha as he mentioned her. "And then some lady knocked on my door."

"I thought she was a salesperson. I was going to tell her that I was quite busy but suddenly she started falling. As soon as I moved forward to help her, I remember feeling a sting on my neck and everything went blur after that." he rubbed at the side of his throat, remembering.

He then turned to face tasha to ask her how she landed up there. She explained that it was the same situation with her except she was approached by an old lady and after she started fainting tasha moved forward to help her and after that it all went blur.

"I don't get it, though," Tarika said thoughtfully. "They just let you see them like that?(pause)…that doesn't make any sense."

They all were interrupted by Tasha clearing her throat. "Here's a thought, —how about instead of standing around talking, we find a way out of here?" She wrapped her arms around herself and glanced about. "I really don't like it in here. It just feels weird."

Though Vivek privately agreed with both of her statements,it seemed that he just couldn't keep himself from making a comment. "Aww, is poor officer Tasha still afraid of the dark?" he snickered.

"WHAT!" she was mad, and rightfully so, most spectators would agree, and turned on her heel to start stalking away. "Fine! Stay trapped in here forever! See if I care!"

"Wait up! " Vivek snapped back on pure instinct, and chased after her as the familiar sound of an argument rang through the otherwise-silent house.

"Honestly, will those two never stop…both of you wait up" Rajat called, but the pair was merrily bickering their way ahead of them with no thought to the other two behind them. He sighed and quickened pace, rounding the corner. "We're going to have to catch up to them. They're not exactly thinking. Or paying attention."

He heard Tarika's voice and footsteps, a few meters behind him. "Rajat this pla—"

There was a soft hissing sound, and Tarika was cut-off in mid-sentence. Her footfalls went silent.

Rajat froze. Something did not feel right. "Tarika?" he called into the dark hallway.

There was no answer.

"Tarika? Where are you?" he tried again, and still got no reply. Growing more and more alarmed by the second, he started inching back towards the corridor from whence he had come. He knew Tarika had been right behind him up until he had gone around the corner. Where was she now? He took a deep breath, and peered around that corner.

It was empty. There was no one there.

Now completely alarmed, Rajat turned and ran after the pair. "Vivek! Tasha"

There were footsteps, and the two came sprinting into view. "What happened?" Vivek asked in between gasps for breath. He was glancing around, as though expecting there to be some visible problem or attacker or something of that nature. "Where's Tarika?"

"That's the problem!" Rajat said, his usual collected demeanour going right out the window. "Tarika's missing, I can't find her anywhere! She was right behind me until I came around this corner, and then I heard a weird hissing sound, and then she was gone!"

"That's impossible—Tasha!" Vivek said, his statement turning into a yelp as Tasha brushed past him. She was already moving towards the hallway in question. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Looking for Tarika! What else?" he snapped back, pausing at the spot where the two hallways intersected.

Tasha tried surveying the area around her as she spoke"we should find her before anything happens!"

"Don't go wandering off by yourself'" Vivek said, stalking towards her with Rajat sticking close, hot on his heels. "If you vanish, I'm not looking for you!"

Rajat knew that last part was a complete and total lie. If Tasha went missing, Vivek would tear the place apart to find her.

"We need to stick together. It looks like Tarika disappeared during that split second when we were in separate hallways. Maybe there's a door or something and someone grabbed her…or she tripped a switch?"

But a search of the walls and floor revealed nothing. Even Tasha inspected the ceiling while climbing on Vivek's shoulder, but she could find no sign of any trick or secret door that would account for Tarika's mysterious disappearance. There was, however, a window in the middle of the ceiling. She couldn't see anything through it except for more of the ceiling, but it was decidedly discomfiting.

With all three of them getting more and more nervous by the minute, they started tearing through the house, searching frantically for any sign of Tarika. They called her name, but got no answer. The house itself, meanwhile, seemed to grow more and more like a maze with every room they entered. There were doorways that led nowhere, windows that opened onto empty rooms, and one stairwell that nearly killed Vivek by going up to a wall; he managed to clock himself on the ceiling.

When they opened another door and found themselves in a library, they stopped for a moment and sat down to catch their breath. They kept moving around the room, pulling books from shelves with little care for their condition. When that failed, they moved to the desk and started rifling through the drawers and papers. What exactly they were searching for remained unclear, but it was obvious that nothing would escape their scrutiny as they searched for Tarika.

"Sir!" Vivek finally jumped in. "We need to calm down! Freaking out isn't going to help!" He did spare a moment to wonder exactly when he became the voice of reason in this ensemble, as that position was usually awarded (with honours) to Rajat.

"I'm not stopping until I find her!" Rajat barked, slamming one hand on the desk.

There was a click, and a section of the carpet suddenly depressed, as though hanging.

The two boys looked at each other for a moment, and then moved towards it as one person. Tasha who was inspecting the books joined them. They had to move a chair in order to get the carpet up, but in relatively short order they had pulled it aside to reveal an opening in the floor. It appeared to be some sort of trap door, and judging by what they could see through that opening, it led to a crawl space.

Before the other two could say anything, Rajat was already climbing down into the small area. "I'll check it out. I don't think it's that big, but…I feel like I should stay in sight." He didn't know why, but he had a feeling that if he was out of sight, it would constitute being alone…and that was very, very bad.

He was proven right: it was a very small space, hardly big enough for him to move in. But he did find something down there—a few something, rather. There was a small framed document or picture of some sort, face down on the dirt floor, and on top of it was what appeared to be some sort of old papers. He picked it up and looked at it. It was definitely a paper, one yellowed with age. And upon closer inspection, he saw what appeared to be writing on it.

"Sir? Did you find anything?" Tasha called from above.

"…actually, yes. I did." he said, gathering both of the items and clambering back out of the crawl space into the lit room above. He quickly spread his discoveries on the floor so the others could see them. The framed paper proved to be a portrait, apparently hand-painted, and slightly faded with age. There was a signature at the bottom that was too far gone to read (presumably the artist), and an engraving at the bottom of the frame that read one word: Urado.

"Well, that's…interesting," Vivek said, raising an eyebrow. He picked up the aged paper and studied it. "What the hell does this mean, exactly?" He squinted at the writing, as though trying to make sense of some great puzzle. "What do you think about that portrait?"

"No idea. It's very good. But who is this Urado? I assume that's this man's name. Definitely a strange name," Rajat commented, giving the picture a closer look. The man in the picture was very thin, and rather sickly-looking, but there was something about the expression on his face or the look in his sunken eyes that did not sit well with Rajat. And he couldn't help but think that in some indefinable way…the man reminded him of something. Something from very long ago. And that was not a good feeling at all.

"But Urado…why do I feel like I should know that name?"

Tasha was tapping her chin thoughtfully. "It does sound sort of familiar…"

Vivek, meanwhile, passed Rajat the aged paper. "what do you think about it"

Rajat obligingly took the paper and studied the writing on it. After a few minutes of thought, he realized why the writing didn't make any sense—this was old language probably mixture of old Sanskrit and symbolic languages. He remembered faintly about seeing something like this in the old books, the books he had seen a very long time ago when he was just a child, probably in his great grandmother's books which were in his family treasure and was treasured by every generation. He realized that it was the same language but he was not aware of it since he was more of a logical person this inscriptions never bothered him anyway. With that in mind, he tried rereading it, having to search his memory for meanings. But finally, he passed it back, his expression very grim. "I don't even have a slightest clue about it."

Tasha turned to look at the aged paper. She took that paper in her hand as she closely started inspecting it, analysing the words and symbols, she knew that she has seen this before. As she tried remembering it, her face broke into excitement as she finally recalled it but it quickly faded as her face turned to grim.

"It's a warning!" she said while eyeing her colleagues. "Saying to stay away! People who come here die. And Urado's name is on there—"she started to explain but was cut off when she noticed something.

"Look! (she pointed at the very corner of the plaque that bore Urado's name. There was a very tiny engraving there, barely legible.)

"What does it say?" Vivek squinted.

"Vlad," Rajat read.

"…Vlad? That does sound familiar" Vivek frowned.

"Urado. Vlad. What are even those…" Rajat remarked.

"The Impaler."

Both turned to look at Tasha in surprise.

…

AN : Do share your views about this :)


	2. Chapter 2

~ **ABOMINABLE MURDERER~**

Part II

"…Vlad? That does sound familiar" Vivek frowned.

"Urado. Vlad. What are even those…" Rajat remarked.

"The Impaler."

Both turned to look at Tasha in surprise.

"What?" both cried at the same moment.

"The only Vlad I've ever heard of is Vlad the Impaler," she said, turning to Vivek. "Don't you remember that movie we saw together?"

"What movie?" vivek asked in confusion.

"The horror movie, I picked us to watch on our date night. " Tasha explained while filling him the details.

"oh..that one" Vivek tried as he remembered watching something like that long ago.

"But that was just the movie right? It's just fiction." Rajat tried reasoning out.

Tasha nodded her head in disagreement.

"It wasn't just a movie; it was inspired from real life incidents. I.." Tasha began to explain as embarrassment crept over her face, "I'm quite fan of these stuffs (she smiled embarrassedly while vivek snickered at his nerd girlfriend over her obsession over paranormal stuffs ) actually after the movie, it peeked my interest and I researched the history of it," she closed her eyes in thought as she tried to remember the details she had so meticulously looked up for her interests. "Bram Stoker was the author's name. The vampire Dracula in the book was a character he invented it was published in 1897, but there was a bit of basis in reality. The actual person was Vlad Dracula, I think it was. I can't remember everything exactly, but I do know that he was called Vlad the Impaler because he liked to execute people by dropping them onto huge spikes and watching while they died." She explained.

"…sounds like a very pleasant guy," Vivek mocked.

"But yeah. That's the only Vlad I know of," Tasha shrugged, though she still looked thoughtful. "Not that it helps us a lot, really. Vlad the Impaler lived in Europe or something." But she was still tapping her chin, a classic gesture that indicated that she was thinking.

Rajat was on his feet, gathering the portrait and aged paper to take with them. He was going on instinct a great deal tonight, but there weren't many other clues left to him in this situation. "Let's get going," he said. "We need to find Tarika."

The three of them headed out of the library, and found stairs leading down, back to the ground floor. But as they started to descend, Vivek froze, his hand on the railing, his feet on two different stairs. He actually went two shades paler. "Tasha..Sir."

They stopped and glanced at him. "What's wrong?"

Vivek looked around, his head moving slowly and deliberately. "…there's something else in this house. And I think it's quite near us. Right here." His eyes were enormous, almost fearful. His gaze trailed across the wall, moving down along the line of the stairs until they stopped about two-thirds of the way down the stairwell. "There." He started moving down the steps, purpose written into his face.

While Rajat and Tasha watched, Vivek dropped to sit on the stairs. He seemed to be fiddling with the wall. It took them both a moment to realize that it wasn't just another piece of paneling in the wall.

It was a door. And Vivek was struggling with the handle.

"What the hell?" Tasha muttered just loud enough for Rajat to hear it Rajat rushed to Vivek's side to help him. It took the both of them several seconds of hard pulling to wrench the curved handle downwards and push the door open. The handle actually slammed down suddenly and the door flew open; Tasha nearly went tumbling forward into the black space beyond it. They immediately started coughing at the cloud of dust they inadvertently stirred up.

Vivek switched on the flashlight built into his watch and covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve as he peered into the darkness. "There's something back here. A room…a big room," he muttered, leaning in a bit further. He did have one moment of hesitation before he made his decision. "I'm going in. You guys can wait out here, or you can come with me."

Though he tried to sound like the idea of wandering into the dark passage alone didn't bother him, he was inordinately relieved when Tasha shook her head. "There's no way in hell we're letting you go alone. The three of us are sticking together." Rajat nodded.

They slipped through that opening and into the space beyond it. Vivek went first, and then Tasha, and Rajat last. Vivek kept a tight hold on Tasha's hand until all three of them were safely on the ground. They left the door open, though the light from that opening wouldn't stretch very far. But now they could look around a bit more easily.

They had crawled into a small room, with a stone floor and dust and cobwebs everywhere. There was a door in the far wall, and some sort of boiler or furnace in the corner. Tasha summed it up very nicely for all of them when she said, "Well. This is pleasant."

Armed with the small beam of light from his watch, Vivek wandered around the perimeter of the room. There wasn't a great deal to see, but he kept shining his light on the wall, as though looking for any openings or trick latches. He paused when he got to the furnace, and dropped his light to shine down on it. Then came the strangled cry. "Sir!"

Rajat and Tasha were across the room in a heartbeat, and Tasha immediately jumped back with a gasp when she saw what was down in the area usually reserved for the furnace's fuel.

Bodies.

Two dead bodies, both covered in blood. Their throats were viciously slashed. Judging by the state of the bodies, they had died relatively recently, but neither the three of them could bring themselves to actually check for the state of rigor mortis or any other indicating factors since that was not their area of expertise but Tarika could have done it but unfortunately she was missing.

"I really, REALLY want to go home now," Vivek swallowed hard, turning away from the sight. "We need to find a way out of this hellhole. Now. Bring the local police back later to check this place out. Or better yet, demolish it down once we have investigating every inch of it ."

Meanwhile Rajat scanned the area and found a door on the far side of the room.

The door in question was old; the knob actually broke off in Rajat's hand, and the door itself swung open very slowly, emitting a loud, ominous creak from the rusty old hinges. Tasha couldn't keep herself from commenting, "Good omen, huh?" When Vivek glared at her, she shrugged.

"What? If we were watching this in a movie, this is where I'd be screaming at the leads not to go in the room" Vivek answered her glaringly.

The door opened onto another short hallway, which led to some sort of entryway or foyer. It was certainly one of the strangest layouts any of them had ever seen, and Rajat had once watched the travel documentaries about the mystery house, Winchester Mansion, California. This horrific place made about as much sense architecturally as that place did. Then again, there weren't any bodies in the Winchester House .

The three of them walked towards the mouth of the hallway and the room that lay there, sticking very close together, when Rajat suddenly stopped again, perhaps a meter or so from that opening.

"Sir?" Vivek asked, giving him a curious look.

He didn't seem to hear the question. His eyes were focused intently on a door on the right side of the hallway just up ahead.

"Somehow this doesn't feel good.." Rajat answered while keeping aside the unsettling feeling he had in his guts. "L-let's just check, we have to find Tarika," Rajat said a quiet reminder of their main objective right now. Once they had her back with them, they could focus on their other goal: finding a way out of this strange place. He was still trying to remember if they had actually seen any doors or windows that led to the outside and tried to remember the layout so that they don't keep circling the same place again and again.

Obeying Rajat's strange orders, they carefully pushed the appointed door open and looked into the room beyond it. Vivek's flashlight swept over the room, illuminating some things in there. A large chair, covered in dusty and faded maroon upholstery. A small table, lying on its side. A fireplace, ornately carved from white stone. And a wardrobe against the wall…

A cold chill ran through Rajat as he opened the wardrobe and felt around inside it. It didn't take long before he felt something strange under his fingers in the bottom corner. A slight application of pressure sounded a click, and he felt the back of the closet swing open.

Before he could say anything, a rush of air swept past the three of them, and it was all Rajat could do to avoid gagging when he got a whiff of it. It was old and musty and smelled strongly of blood. He froze at the mysterious draft and the awful smell, swallowed hard, and felt the strange, inexplicable need to remind himself that there was no such thing as ghosts.

…but if ghosts did exist, this certainly seemed like the kind of place where they would hang out.

"Vivek?" Rajat said quietly after a moment. "What's next? Do you have any idea?"

A beat of silence, tempered only by their breathing. He fell quiet for a moment, and then shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know what's next."

"Let's keep going," Tasha said after a moment. "I think we will find Tarika somewhere here."

They walked down the corridor. It was a short tunnel of perhaps fifteen feet or so. They emerged at the other end, apparently outside. The ground was an odd shade of brown, and they were surrounded on either side by tall hedges, like the kind one would find in a hedge maze. And the whole place carried a nauseatingly heavy scent of blood.

The three hurried through the maze, barely speaking to each other at all. They don't seemed to know, which way to go, and were ending up circling again and again to the same spot. Each turn they would take hoping they would find a exist would turn out Dead End. Their CID instincts were not coming use to this maze however, it was getting hard to identify which way they had passed before, all the routes and turn were looking similar. The fog, the green walls, the bloody scent was making them all sick but they knew that had to keep going, they had no choice but to press forward.

After a quiet long time (or so it seemed, in a strange way), they found themselves staring up at the aforementioned building. It was made of wood, most of which was faded and rotting, and the door directly ahead of them had once been painted white, though it was now peeling, and the worn wood was clearly visible. It seemed that this was their destination.

"What's now?," Tasha said softly. Rajat moved forward and took the dubious honor of opening the door. The knob must have been rusty; it resisted a bit before turning in his hand.

What lay ahead could have been someone's house; the initial glance almost reminded Rajat of the layout of Sherlock Holmes Museum at England, with the stairs to the left of the entryway. They moved inside, looking around in search of any clue; Tasha moved ahead, staying well within sight of the two men.

"Vivek?" Rajat asked, watching as Tasha opened a door and peered inside. "Anything?"

Before he could answer, Tasha gasped.

The two officers were at her side in an eye blink, Vivek grabbing her arm with intent to shield her from whatever lay inside. But the sight made even the experienced officers freeze and stare in horror.

…

AN: So how was it? Do share your review about this one.

AND a BIG THANKS for all the reviews!


	3. Chapter 3

**ABOMINABLE MURDERER~**

Part III

Before he could answer, Tasha gasped.

The two officers were at her side in an eye blink, Vivek grabbing her arm with intent to shield her from whatever lay inside. But the sight made even the experienced officers freeze and stare in horror.

The room Tasha had inadvertently opened…was full of bones.

It was a long room with a high ceiling, lined with shelves that ran from floor to ceiling. And on the shelves were heaps of bones, gathered in small piles. Each pile was topped with a skull, giving the impression that each of the individual heaps was an individual person. And there were seemingly countless piles, the remnants of so many nameless dead.

It brought to mind the blood-soaked bodies they had found in the furnace just inside the hidden door at the stairwell, how their throats had been so painfully slashed open…

"We have to find Tarika soon" vivek's voice was tense and no little frightened.

"Then let's go," Rajat said. They all exited the room and moved towards the stairs which were adjacent to the room.

"I just hope we don't end up finding more of these." Said vivek .

As they moved forward, they heard footfalls on the stairs behind them until they had gotten about halfway up; there the footsteps ceased. Rajat turned to look at vivek and tasha who was just by his side. "You head that right?" Rajat asked them to confirm that he was not hearing things, they both nodded.

They were frozen in place on the stairs, Rajat's feet on two different steps, his hand clutching the railing, and his eyes focused on the landing ahead while Vivek just tightened his grip on Tasha

"Sir…" he murmured. "Every instinct in my body is telling me to run like hell and not look back."

Tasha shivered. Even though she was a huge fan of such paranormal stuffs and movies but this thing was hell different, she had a bad feeling in the pit of her gut as well, but she hadn't wanted to voice the feeling. It seemed silly, really. It was just a flight of stairs and she was hallucinating maybe all of them were.

…right?

No matter what they felt, though, they had to find Tarika.

"We have to keep going," Vivek said with more courage than he truly felt.

Without glancing back they all continued to move forward as the sound of footsteps died. As they reached at the end of the stairs Rajat peeked but he found nothing.

Strange…really strange..

"Tasha," Vivek said, reaching a hand behind him towards the girl, "stay close, okay?"

Surprise flitted over her features, but she nodded (though he couldn't see it) and reached up to take his hand. "I'm with you." Seeing the room full of bones had ended any and all arguments, and left only a dark realization as to how serious their situation truly was.

As if it hadn't been obvious enough.

The conversation died quickly as they turned onto the landing and froze.

Ahead was a red metal door. Just like the shade of Blood!

"…This doesn't look good either.." Vivek murmured.

The feelings of dread were completely mutual.

Rajat swallowed hard and squared his shoulders. "Let's go." He was proud that his voice only quavered slightly, and they began walking towards that door. He reached out, hesitated, then pulled it wide open and peered into the semi-darkness. Strange how the room seemed to be very dimly lit.

And the smell of blood and death was so strong that it nearly sent him to his knees. He was almost ill, and he heard the other two behind him gasping in a similar fashion at the horrific stench. Steeling both his nerves and his stomach, Rajat moved into the room. "Hello?" Aided by the flashlight built into his watch, he quickly scanned the room, noting that the door they had come through was the only one in or out of the room; finally, the beam of light fell across a huddled form on the floor in the corner…

"Tarika!" the name tore from Rajat's mouth as he sprinted across the room, sidestepping a table that stood in the center of it to reach Tarika's side, grabbing her shoulders and giving her a gentle shake. She was sitting with her back against the wall, her knees pulled up to her chest, and her forehead resting on her knees; she seemed to be unconscious, oh please let her only be asleep… "Tarika! Tarika!"

After a moment of this, she stirred and blinked up at him owlishly, as though trying to make him come back into focus. "Ra-Rajati?" she said dully with the air of one who has just awoken from a nap and is not fully coherent yet. "What're you doing' here?"

"Are you all right? Are you hurt?" Rajat asked in a panic.

"I'm'fine…just cold…" Tarika said. It had to be agreed that the room was inexplicably chilly.

Rajat who was wearing a long-sleeved shirt open over a T-shirt; at Tarika's confession of being cold, he moved to slip the outer shirt off and offer it to her. As he did so, he heard footsteps behind him, and took them to be his other colleagues; a suspicion confirmed when vivek said, "What happened?"

"I was walking just behind you," Tarika said, accepting the shirt with a grateful look. "And then I couldn't move, and there were two men there and they pulled me through the wall and through the garden and brought me here…I really don't know…"

"I think we need to get out of here n—" Vivek straightened, but his statement was cut off when he slipped. He let out a squawk that turned to a gasp of pain when he caught himself by slamming his elbow down onto the table situated in the center of the floor.

"Vivek!" Tasha was right behind him. "Are you okay?"

"Damn, that hurt…" he pushed himself upright and shook his head. "I'm fine. Let's just get out of here."

Rajat started to nod his assent, then his eyes widened and his jaw dropped. "Vivek…" he swung his light up towards Vivek. "Your arm…"

Vivek glanced down at his forearm, the one he had braced against the tabletop to keep himself from crashing when he had slipped. And now it was his turn to look stunned when he realized that his sleeve was stained bright red.

BLOOD..

The table was covered with blood.

The entire room was blood-soaked, splattered across the walls and floor.

Rajat stood and reached a hand down to help pull Tarika to her feet.

"Vivek…" he murmured, "…was it like this when we came in?" As a CID Officers, they always prided themselves on being meticulously observant at all times. But now as Rajat wracked his memory for what the room had looked like when they had entered, he could not say for certain whether there had been blood splattered everywhere or not.

Suddenly, he felt a cold that had nothing at all to do with the temperature in the room.

And it was only compounded when Vivek, equally observant with an equally astute attention to details, shook his head. "I…I don't know. Was it?" Tasha had been relatively silent through most of this, and simply joined in the shaking of heads.

It was frightening to comprehend, really, that they could have somehow missed something that now seemed so glaringly obvious. Had they missed anything else? God, this whole place was horrendous, quite possibly evil, and they still had to find a way out.

"Guys…"Tarika said suddenly with one hand pointing towards something on the other side of the room. "L-look. What is that?"

All three gazes followed hers, and zeroed in on the object in question. "Is that…a bathtub?" Tasha asked, incredulously. But the question was more of an instinctive reaction than anything else because like the table and the walls, the white porcelain was splattered with something that looked far too much like blood for anyone's comfort.

No, not just splattered.

A few steps closer revealed that it was actually filled nearly to the top with dark, thick red liquid, almost to the point of overflowing onto the stained floor. The surface of the liquid was still. And it brought to mind the bodies they had seen out by the secret door, with their throats torn open so violently…was that where all this had come from? And what about all the other bodies, those bones stacked on the shelves in that little room. Had they somehow contributed to this?

A sudden chill gripped Rajat, and he squeezed Tarika's hand. Something was about to happen.

Sure enough, a single ripple started in the middle of the tub with no visible source for it. They all waited, each unconsciously holding their breath as they stood to see what was going to come from this.

And like a monster from some bad horror movie, this…thing began to rise out of the blood. It came straight up, as though the tub was deep enough for him to stand upright in, though that was visibly not the case. Bulbous eyes stared at them from a skull-like face atop a body that was nothing more than a skeleton draped with skin.

And it stared at them with a grin that bordered on the maniacal.

In hindsight, none of the four was sure who said it. It was a voice, possibly one of theirs, and it cut through the room, momentarily obscuring the sound of the THING'S heaving, panting breaths. A single word, a single syllable that jolted all of them out of their stunned stupor with its clear-cut order.

"RUN!"

It made all of them jump to attention and jump to action as they rushed to obey. They tore around the table, heading for the door. There was no way that thing could catch them, could it? They just had to get away. They had to run like hell and make it out of this room, through the maze, and—

Something grabbed Rajat's ankle.

Moving as fast as he was, he didn't have time to catch himself or adjust, and it was a foregone conclusion. He flew forward and crashed to the floor, face down. He smacked his forehead but good, and for a moment he was too dazed to move as pretty yellow stars danced in front of his eyes. But realizing where he was, he glanced back to see what he had tripped on.

"What —" Rajat let out an involuntary yelp of alarm and instinctively started kicking, trying frantically to free his leg and get loose from…from whatever it was that was holding him in place. But the hand held fast against his kicks, and panic was starting to set in.

And then a drop of something wet fell on his hand, which was splayed out on the floor, caught by another hand that had come out of the tile to grab at his wrist.

He really didn't have to look. He was sure he could guess what it was. But he turned his head and looked anyway, and saw that it was, indeed, blood. And there were bare feet there, with rivulets of blood running down them to leave crimson footprints on the floor.

With a slowness that almost defied human physics, Rajat dragged his eyes upwards to see the thing looming over him. It hadn't seemed so huge when they saw it emerging from across the room, but now, standing above him as he lay immobile on the floor?

Rajat had never been so horrified in his life, and he really didn't care who knew it.

Especially when he noticed something in the monster's hand, something that flashed silver as it moved in the dim light. He recognized it quickly as knife. A large, sharp-looking knife.

And those protruding eyes were watching him with a glee that bordered on sadistic.

Was this…

Was this Urado? The man whose portrait they had found, whose name sounded so much like a man known to the long annals of history as a terror and a devil and whose legacy was one of blood and torture and pain and death?

And it was leaning down towards Rajat, that hideous face twisted into a sick parody of a smile. The knife was held out, moving ever closer to his throat. It seemed fairly obvious as to what was about to happen, and it turned Rajat's blood to ice in his veins.

Blood.

That was what this thing was after.

I'm going to die, Rajat realized, unable to tear his eyes away from the creature. He's going to kill me.

He had heard it said the answers came at the end, but there were no answers here. There was no who and how and why. There were only questions, and terror, and a desperate, animalistic need to escape.

"Rajat!"

He heard Tarika's voice from the door, and was finally able to break the spell that thing had cast over him to look towards her. He heard the words "Tarika, RUN!" tear from his throat, but it didn't sound like him. He had never sounded so hoarse or frightened in his life.

And Tarika didn't move. Whether she was immobilized by fear or unwilling to leave him there, he didn't know, but he wanted to scream with frustration.

The knife pressed against his throat, and he heard it make a coughing sound amidst the heavy breaths; he took that sound to be some sad attempt at laughter as it prepared to kill him. Oh my god…

He felt the knife move and he felt pain as the sharp edge cut into his skin and oh god he was already bleeding and he was going to die like this…

…

AN: So how about this one?


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

 **ABOMINABLE MURDERER~**

 **Part IV**

The knife pressed against his throat, and he heard it make a coughing sound amidst the heavy breaths; he took that sound to be some sad attempt at laughter as it prepared to kill him. Oh my god…

He felt the knife move and he felt pain as the sharp edge cut into his skin and oh god he was already bleeding and he was going to die like this…

A burst of light flickered in front of his eyes and then exploded into streams of light, like a gymnast's ribbon, twirling and arching in the narrow space between him and the thing.

Rajat stared at it, wide-eyed. It felt like…for some reason, as he watched those ribbons of light moving in the air, he thought of a woman he had known a long time ago, a woman to whose senseless death he had been the only witness, the only ears to hear her last words…

The knife clattered to the floor as the monster stepped back, its face going from sickening gleefully to alarmed and confused in the time it took Rajat to let out a hoarse gasp of relief. Still being held to the floor by the hands that had come up from the floor to hold him, he watched as the white lights moved around that thing before they seemed to attack.

The monster, Urado, seemed to burst into pieces and vanish.

A second later, the hands gripping Rajat's ankle and wrist also vanished.

It took him a second to realize that he was once again mobile. But once he did, he surged to his feet and dashed towards the door where Tarika was still standing there stiffly as she watched in horror the slaughtering. He grabbed her hand to pull her along, but she was already moving beside him, matching his pace.

"What happened?" Vivek was at the foot of the stairs with his hand on the banister, like he had been preparing to climb the stairs. Tasha was standing right behind him, one of her hands on his shoulder; it seemed that she had been trying to stop him from going up there again.

For the third time in as many minutes, the single word was barked: "RUN!" This time it was definitely Rajat, who actually jumped over the railing to the ground level without ever breaking step. Vivek didn't need to be told twice, and the four tore back through the door, the maze, the room, the hallway, and out through the door.

The entire way, Rajat kept glancing back. In the shadows, he swore he saw Urado's face. He swore he heard that heavy breathing in his ears, smelled that horrific stench of blood and decomposition and death dancing in front of his nose as something thin and icy cold pressed to his throat…

They flung themselves through that door, scrambling back up onto the stairwell. For a lack of anything else to do, vivek kicked the door closed behind them before pushing away from it and continuing on their mad sprint down the stairs, as far away from it as they could possibly get.

None of them saw the glimmer of white light that moved across that door.

Nor did they hear the growl from beyond it, like the snarl of a beast that has just been caged.

-o-

It was some distance before they skidded to a stop. Vivek slumped over, putting his hands on his knees to support himself as he panted desperately for air; Tasha leaned on him. Tarika put one hand on a table in the hallway as she gasped. Rajat dropped to the floor and curled up, putting his hands on the back of his head with his fingers interlocked as he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet.

"Th-that was…" Tasha stammered, still white as a sheet. "Oh my god…that thing…"

Tarika actually looked like she was out of her wits, being a doctor and scientific in approach all this was pretty hard to digest. Her mind was clashing between her lifelong studies and belief with what she just saw. But whatever she was going to say faded into concern as she noticed that Rajat was still sitting in a modified fetal position, staring at the floor. "Rajat?"

One hand loosened itself from its grip on his head and waved. "Just…just give me a minute…" His voice was hoarse and harsh and strained, and he would not look at anyone. Still, a red stain was visibly forming on the neckline of his shirt.

"You're hurt!" Tarika dropped to her knees beside him, her hands already grappling at her pockets in search of a handkerchief or something she could use to wipe away the blood or press against the wound to try and stave off the bleeding. The location of this injury made it even more alarming—what if he was dying? They still hadn't found a door in this place! How would they get him help?

"I said give me a minute!" Rajat repeated his voice even more grating.

Tarika ignored him and reached down to move her head off to one side for a better examination of the cut on his neck. After a moment, she sighed. "I think he missed the major artery. Don't know how, but it's not bleeding enough for it to be the artery. But we have to get a medical help soon, it's pretty deep."

"yeah…" Rajat muttered. He was shaking now, visibly, from head to toe. But after a moment, he straightened his legs and stood hunched over with his hands braced against his thighs. Another minute passed before he rose to his full height and gave himself a shake. He looked pale and shaken. "Let's go. Please. Let's just…let's just get the hell out of this place…"

No one argued. They started walking, all four of them keeping close together both for support and for self-preservation. If anything else came out of the walls or attacked them…they needed to stick together. It felt a little silly to be fearful of things crawling out of the walls. That seemed more like something out of a child's nightmares, like the boogeyman in the closet.

But they had found the boogeyman. He lived in a house within a house, beyond a hedge maze that was drenched in the nauseating stench of blood. Given what had already happened, they did not want to take anything for granted or write anything off as impossible. This seemed a place where the impossible came to life and terrorized you, possibly at the expense of your life.

After several more moments of walking, Tasha stopped so suddenly that the other three ran into her. "This is not getting us anywhere!" she said. "We're not finding a door! Guys, let's come up with some sort of plan, please!" One hand tugged nervously at the hem of her shirt. "Something…anything, we need an idea. At the rate we're going, we'll never get out of here."

Tarika nodded "She's right. Let's…let's come up with a is awful."

Vivek glanced over at Rajat

"…Sir?" he said, noticing that Rajat was staring up at the ceiling, his face blank. It almost made Vivek wince; that particular pose made the bleeding cut on his neck impossible to miss. "You okay?"

"I'm just thinking. I feel like we're missing something," Rajat said in response, turning his head to look straight at Vivek. "What's bothering me is the why of all this. Why bring us here? Why go to all this trouble? Why not just, I don't know, shoot us in the head or something?"

Vivek glanced back over at him.

"It does seem weird. Also they even let us see them. We could identify them, no problem." He folded his arms. "I think it's pretty obvious that they don't think we'll ever get that chance. In other words—"

"They expect us to die, right?" Tarika completed the sentence as she eyed the others.

" I mean, that's the only way they can be one hundred percent certain that we won't talk," Vivek nodded.

"But why go to such lengths? I mean…" Tasha interrupted.

"Ghost Weapon! A ghost who kills people…" Vivek cocked his head to one side. "I must say, that's a new and quite unique one."

Rajat shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. "New or not, I don't care. Whatever is going on, I want to know. I was a split second away from being a murder victim myself. So I think I'm entitled to some answers."

Tasha tapped her chin thoughtfully for a moment, and then froze. "…say that again."

Startled, Rajat said, "…I'm entitled to some answers?"

"The part before that."

I was almost murdered?"

"Yeah, that."

"…why?"

"Sir,"Tasha gave them an odd look, "tell me something. What's the legal definition of murder?"

"Tasha , you're not making any sense." Tarika answered as she couldn't figure out what her friend was implying.

"Just answer the question."

Tarika sighed. "Legally, murder is the killing of one human by another…" she trailed off at the end of that statement as it clicked, and her eyes widened. "You're not actually suggesting…"

"One human kills another. Malicious intent. That's murder. So if Sir would have died in that room…who's the murderer?" Tasha asked. There was a certain speculative glimmer in her eyes that only appeared when she got the result what she had desired.

Rajat and Vivek, meanwhile, had apparently realized that something important was being unraveled and had come closer to listen.

"…does Urado count as a human?"

"Does a ghost count as a human? I wouldn't think so," Vivek shook his head. "I mean, no self-respecting officers would ever suggest that a ghost was the culprit in a murder. If they did, they'd probably be laughed off the investigation." He glanced at others. "Right?"

Tasha nodded. "None of the officers I know would suggest it."

"Let's go back to the beginning," Rajat waved a hand in the air before pressing it to his forehead, as though trying to stave off a headache. "We're kidnapped. They let us see them, which suggests that they don't care if we could identify them because they don't think we'll ever be able to. We wake up in this crazy house, and the next thing we know, we're face-to-face with a ghost intent on cutting our throats."

"…but a ghost isn't human" Tarika said.

"That thing was not human," Rajat said quickly, his voice crisp. One hand moved to his neck in an unconscious gesture. "So…Urado couldn't be the murderer in the legal sense. So then…"

"So then who murdered you?" Tasha finished.

As they listened to Tasha their eyes widened as a thought struck them.

"I'd rather ask what the murder weapon is. The knife? Or…?"

"…you're actually suggesting that they're using a ghost as a murder weapon?" Rajat said.

"It's the perfect weapon, isn't it?" Tarika interjected. "Completely untraceable."

.,

AN: how was this?


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter V**

 **Abominable Murderer**

"So then who murdered you?" Tasha finished.

As they listened to Tasha their eyes widened as a thought struck them.

"I'd rather ask what the murder weapon is. The knife? Or…?"

"…you're actually suggesting that they're using a ghost as a murder weapon?" Rajat said.

"It's the perfect weapon, isn't it?" Tarika interjected. "Completely untraceable."

"So…they dump us in here to let us be killed by a ghost. That way…there's no physical murderer. The ones who put us here—the real killers…they could be miles and miles away, so there's no way they could be blamed for our deaths, right?" Vivek almost seemed to be thinking out loud.

"So…we die. There's no murder weapon, no murderer…"Tasha seconded his thought.

"…you know, legally there might not even be a murder," Tarika piped up.

The other three stared at her.

"What?" Vivek said.

"Think about it," she said. "We all are CID Officers, we know how this works. Say it's a kidnapping. They make a clean grab, and there's no evidence left of any foul play. Then no one could really say that the person in question didn't just decide to take off somewhere."

"But the body—" Vivek said.

"What body?" Tasha asked, raising an eyebrow. "Remember that room we found, with all the bones? And there were quite a few in there, which tells us that they've done this before. Lots of times. Which is why they were confident enough to leave us here."

"…the bodies don't leave. They're never found," Vivek said. Comprehension was finally dawning as to what she was getting at.

"If there's no body and no evidence of foul play…" Tarika continued.

"Then wouldn't it be a missing person's case? At least initially?" Tasha finished.

"…Tasha, every once in a while you're kind of brilliant," Vivek said, and she swatted him.

"So…we vanish, but no one knows we were kidnapped," Tarika said.

"Even if they do find some evidence of that, they can't prove that we're dead. We're a missing person case, most likely. And then we die in here. No one knows where we are. No one knows that we're dead. No one ever finds our bodies." Vivek ran nervous fingers through his bangs.

"And so it stands to reason that no one finds the ones responsible. The real killers. They're clean." Rajat finally spoke after listening for a while, "Using a completely untraceable murder weapon, a ghost…" Rajat was startled to feel a laugh bubble up from his chest, a harsh sound that he was hard-pressed to subdue. "Oh my god…I can't find a hole in this plan. Some mistake. And I can't. It's brilliant."

"It's more than brilliant, Rajat," Tarika was actually fighting down stupefied laughter of her own as she tried to imagine what conclusions she would have drawn if she were investigating this from the outside; would her logical mind ever dared to suspect a ghost?

"I think it's perfect. It's a perfect flawless murder." Tasha exhaled.

Those words fluttered over all of them, fading into the silence.

"So…what do we do?" Vivek finally asked quietly.

"If we die in here, then we'll just be another piles of bones just like those people," Rajat sighed. "They won't find us. Even if they do, by some miracle, they won't know what happened to us. So the only way for us to solve the mystery, as it were…"

But before Rajat could complete his sentence a bloodcurdling scream stopped him in mid-sentence. Rajat stopped, he could feel all his body getting tensed and the hair on his neck standing, he turned to look but all he could see the fog enveloping all the distant moors.

"Rajat" Tarika called as she pressed a hand on his shoulder. "What happened?"

Rajat looked back at Tarika and back at the origin of the scream.

"You heard that, right.." Rajat replied looking terrified. "the scream..the girl screamed..we have to help her.." Rajat moved forward and was about to head back towards the maze when Tarika grabbed him and turned to face him.

"There was no scream Rajat.." Tarika replied as she looked at him worriedly. "No one screamed.." she said while looking at Vivek who also nodded positively.

Rajat looked at them bewilderedly; he knew he had heard that scream, there was no mistake in that, he definitely was not hallucinating. He knew that scream too well..it was _her._.it definitely belong to _her._.before she..

Rajat felt a sharp pang arise in his head; he held his head furiously as he tried to stop thinking about it. All the things were right swarming his head, everything..everything about _her_..every last detail about _her._.

"Rajat.." Tarika looked at him in concern as she patted his back trying to reassure him. "Are you okay?"

Rajat gave a slight nod; he was still clutching his head and bending with one hand rested on his knee.

There was tremendous unsettling silence groping them as they stood there.

When all of sudden they heard a loud chime echoing from the path which they came, it sounded like a Big Ben clock. They almost jumped at the sound of it and stared at each other as they heard the chime ring for multiple times.

"Thirteen.." Tasha mumbled. "It rang for thirteen times. It doesn't feel good.."

As Tasha's words escaped her mouth she looked at the rest of them uncertainly and as the thirteenth chime died they heard a loud thundering howl echoing. The voice alone of it was so huge and scary that none of them dared imagine what the creature would look like but just as the though escaped their mind, they witnessed a huge shadow approaching them through the mist. The shadow was huge and was at least 7ft tall and was getting bigger by each step as it approached it. The rest of the gang remained petrified, they were too afraid to move any of their muscle. They moved close towards each other as the mist began clearing and giving them a clear version of the creature who stood snarling at them.

The creature was twice their size, black furred, wolf faced, two red eyes bulging from his socket, his yellow large canine teeth were tainted with blood and few bits of flesh were attached in his large mouth, his arms were huge and he was dragging them on ground, the nails that were at least inches long made screeching sound as it made contact with the ground..

The beast stared at them, ogling each one of them as they were his food, he howled again and stood on his hind legs as he continued to move forward towards them..

...

AN : So how was it?


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